Camp Joshua, an annual pro-life camp, gives Arkansas students the knowledge and skills needed to combat a culture of death.
Two Catholic teens who attended the July 26-28 camp — Liliana Clark, 17, and Samuel Luyet, 16 — are ready to tackle pro-life issues in their communities even harder than before, thanks to the lessons learned at Camp Joshua.
Camp Joshua, located in Humphrey at the CrossHeirs Retreat Center, is sponsored and hosted by Arkansas Right to Life. Started in 2011, Camp Joshua was named after the Old Testament figure who led the Israelites to the Promised Land and brought down the walls of Jericho.
“Just as Joshua brought down the walls of Jericho, the young men and women from Camp Joshua will lead their generation to build a culture of life and bring down the walls of the culture of death,” according to the Camp Joshua website.
Camp Joshua has made a difference in the lives of many young Catholics, including Father Ben Riley, pastor of Mary Mother of God Church in Harrison and St. Andrew Church in Yellville, who attended the camp as a counselor while he was a seminarian.
“There were presentations on abortion, presentations on euthanasia, presentations on adoptive services,” he said. “I gave a talk about making a logical syllogism as a philosophy student at the time … and I made this very simple argument that really anybody who’s pro-life can give … It is always wrong to intentionally kill a human being. Abortion is always the intentional killing of a human being. Therefore, abortion is always wrong. … Laying it out like that for teenagers really helps them to solidify their own beliefs and try to avoid the more emotional arguments or the arguments based on theology when you’re talking to somebody who’s not religious.”
Campers spent three days participating in activities, including small group sessions, games and a guided tour of the State Capitol with State Sen. Ben Gilmore. Throughout the three days, campers heard talks about abortion, euthanasia and how to persuade others to be pro-life.
Luyet, who attends St. Joseph High School in Conway, has been involved in diocesan events such as the Youth Advisory Council and Search team for years.
“We learned a lot about the pro-life movement, how (an abortion) happens and how bad they are, the side effects of it,” Luyet said. “I really didn’t know about all the side effects and stuff. I knew a little bit about abortion before I went to the camp, but I didn’t know all the suicidal effects after that.”
After Camp Joshua, Luyet said he was excited to do even more pro-life work than before and work to dispel misinformation in his community.
“I plan on maybe starting a pro-life group at my youth group at my church — like maybe teaching some middle schoolers about pro-life, maybe a little bit at one their youth nights or something like that,” he said. “I may do a talk maybe once a week at lunch or something. I plan on getting in touch with somebody about maybe doing an abortion class, about teaching us how to do pro-life work.”
Clark, a senior at Cabot High School and parishioner of St. Jude Church in Jacksonville, is determined to apply what she learned at Camp Joshua to bring the walls down around the culture of death.
“I feel like I learned a lot from all of the people who presented, and it was good in that it was in-depth in how it helped me to learn about all of the views that we have as pro-life people,” Clark said. “I think I’ve realized that a lot of other people say they’re pro-choice just because they don’t really understand and they want women to have rights, which is a good thing and a great thing, but they don’t understand what (abortion) really does and how it hurts people.”
Clark said being around other young people who felt the same as her motivated her to do more.
“It made me feel so much more comfortable and so happy to know that there are other people who believe the same things with me and want to help defend the unborn,” Clark said. “It made me realize that a lot of the time in social media, there’s so many people who just try and put their voice out there as much as possible and push their opinions, and a lot of the time, they’re not in as much of a majority as they want us to believe.”
Natalia Clark, the mother of Liliana, attended the camp with her daughter. She said that even she, as a mother, was moved by the importance of what campers learned, particularly when activists reported an uptick of young people saying that they support abortion and that they wish they themselves had been aborted.
“How sad is that?” Natalia said. “That young people in a culture of death feel that way?”
Fortunately, plenty of young people like Liliana are determined to take what they learned at Camp Joshua and put it to good use.
“I know at my school, there’s already a pro-life club for students, but at my church, we have a youth group that meets every Wednesday, and I’d like to encourage others to go to Camp Joshua, because it was amazing and I really learned a lot,” Liliana said.
Wil Russell, a non-denominational Christian originally from Sherwood, still drives in from Des Moines, Iowa, every year to help with the camp, where he has been a student leader at Camp Joshua since 2018. This year was his fifth time attending Camp Joshua.
“I think Camp Joshua is so important because even after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, there is still so much misinformation about what abortion is, like if the unborn is a baby or not, or if it’s a liberating choice for women or a way to manipulate them into thinking abortion is their only choice,” Russell said. “Especially today, young people have been told lies about abortion like ‘abortion is health care’ or ‘my body my choice,’ and there’s no way for them to truly know what the horrors of abortion are and why the fight is so important.”
